


The tremendous act of opening old wounds

by Rillion



Series: Mindgames [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angelic Possession, Angst, Archangels, Gen, Possession, Suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-05 08:26:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 3,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15859911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rillion/pseuds/Rillion
Summary: Poking at scars isn’t fun. Tearing them open again is one of the worst kinds of torture.Dean Winchester has many scars.Michael knows.-A couple of really short (really, they are practically fragments) successive one shots belonging to my series of speculation of what kind of mind games Michael is playing with Dean.-This belongs to a collection of speculations, of what Dean experiences, while being possessed by Micheal. And the aftermath.It’s my way to bridge the hiatus, and maybe it helps you too. Nothing against some headcanons, am I right?You can see these one shots as successive  events, but I personally think that wouldn’t fit, since some of them are pretty different. Some are meant to be following events, but I’ll let you know that, if that’s the case. Anyway, you can think what you like here. I try writing it that it fits both ways.





	1. Start

Memories, they are driving Dean mad. His own memories flash through him, but not the good ones, no. It seems to be an endless loop of the most horrible moments his life has to offer. Starting from the night his mother died.


	2. Memory One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night everything started.

Flames. Flames everywhere. The heat welcomes him as he followed the scream coming from Sammy‘s room. Terrified, he looks at the ceiling, where his mother is pinned, surrounded by flames, her face widened in horror. He knows, he will never forget this image in his entire life.  
“Dean! Take your brother outside as fast as you can”, his dad yells and puts a bundle in his arms. It is heavy and big for a four-year-old. Dean stumbles.  
“Go Dean, go!”  
And then he runs. Down the stairs. So fast, he nearly trips and falls one time, but he steadies himself, because Sammy could hurt if he fell. Down down down the stairs and to the front door, where Dean turns around and stares at the burning room. The flames flingering out of the window, high up in the sky.  
“Daaaaad! Moooom!”, Dean screams, “Daaaaad! Moooom!”  
Sam in his arms starts to scream and Dean begins to shake him lightly to calm him down, just like his mom had showed it to him.  
“Pshhh Sammy”, Dean calms him. “It’s gonna be okay.”  
Looking back, Dean thinks, this was the moment he began lying to himself.


	3. Memory Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The striga case.

The next thing Dean sees is his father, clutching Sam to him. Accusing eyes pierce through him as he stands in the door frame. The striga. The damned striga. The case that almost killed Sam, because Dean wasn’t careful enough. The older won’t ever forgive himself for it and he was sure John would not either. This is the night he swears, he would always protect Sam, more than he already does. For Sammy, but also for the tiny possibility, that his father would stop looking at him like that. So unfamiliar as if he doesn’t recognise Dean anymore. It hurts him every time.


	4. Memory Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night Sam leaves to Stanford.

“Why did you hide this from me?”, John asks, the Stanford acceptance letter in his hands.  
“Because you would have never actually let me,“ Sam hisses back, a packed duffel back already over his shoulder. His brother would leave. Now.  
“Why do you abandon your family?”, John asks bitter.  
“Oh please, you can go on just as good without me. Maybe even better”, Sam scoffs. Dean winces by the harshness both voices. His dad and Sam fight often and they fight dirty. But this particular fight radiates another kind of energy. It feels, like it would be the last one for quite a while.  
“That is no excuse for failing us!”, John now yells, stepping up to Sam.  
“This family is a nightmare!”, his little brother reasons back, “Because you are obsessed dad. You don’t care about anything else except the job!”  
John grabs Sam by the hem of his shirt and Sam did the same with their father. That is it. Dean has enough. He cannot watch them like this anymore and interferes.  
“Enough! Enough you two!” He tears them apart from one another. “Calm down and just talk about this!”  
Dean’s gaze jumped between his brother’s and his father’s face. He does not move away, too big was the fear, that they would start fighting again. No, he would be the sponge, which absorbs their anger. He won’t let them direct it at each other.   
“There is nothing to talk”, John spits out, turning away from both of his sons.  
“Dad, it doesn’t have to be this way”, Sam tries, but their father interrupts him with a pejorative gesture. Dean sighs. Why does his family have to be this way? So damaged, so fucked up, so goddamn lost when it comes to things like this?   
“Dad look-“, Sam tries again, but in vain.  
“Sam, when you go through that door, don’t bother coming back”, John says, as he turns around to sit in the motel table. His father does not bother taking one more glance at both of his sons. Dean is speechless.  
“What?”, he asks in disbelieve. Now, fighting is one thing, but disinheritance?  
“Fine”, Sam spits and walks to the door.  
“No wait!”, Dean yells , “You two can’t just let it end like that!”  
He walks in Johns direction first, then in Sam’s. Without a plan, he sees his family go separate ways. With so many unsaid words between them, so many issues unsolved, they part.  
“Please!” Dean’s look jumps between his father and his brother, who now reaches the door and looks back one last time. Sam’s expression says everything he still has to add to this situation, when he looks at John. And as the expression doesn’t change as his brother looks at him, Dean feels his heart sting in his chest.  
“Good bye”, Sam says bitter, before walking out.   
It is, as if he is being torn apart. Here they are, going separate ways in a manner, that was anything, but happy and expect him to live with it. As if he could. As if he isn’t so depended on both of them, that it often feels like he isn’t even an individual person anymore. Now, he can just stand there, not able to catch his breath, ‘cause it’s stuck in his lungs from his world crumbling down around him.  
He clutches his chest.  
Waiting a moment to somewhat control his breath again, Dean decides to run after his little brother.  
“Sam! Sam wait!”  
“What is it Dean?”, Sam asks impatient.  
“He doesn’t mean it.”  
“Oh he means it, alright”, Sam answers regarding their father.   
“Please Sam, just try talking to him one more time”, Dean begs, trying to hold the same speed as Sam.  
“You see what came out of it”, Sam says, “I won’t come back Dean.”  
These words drill a deep hole in Dean’s chest, but he tries not to show it. Instead, he manages to reduce his frustration to a sad sigh.  
“Then,” He is getting slower, “I’d say this is goodbye?”  
He tries to hide it, but he has a hard time swallowing.   
His little brother looks back at him, as he stands there with slumped shoulders, the head low, trying to blink away his watery vision.  
“Dean-“  
“Will you call when you got there? Doesn’t have to be dad, only me. I just wanna know you got there safe.” Dean looks at his brother and sees him considering if that is a good idea or not.  
“Please Sam.” The older now notices the tears in his eyes stinging heavier with growing amount of saline water.  
“Okay”, Sam says softer than before, but turned around then and walks away. No hug, no encouraging words, no guarantee of seeing each other again. And so, Dean is left alone in the night.


	5. Memory Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John’s death.

“You bastard, why did you do that?”  
Dean wraps the lifeless body of his father in white blankets in anger and secures them with ropes.

“You tell me to kill Sam and then you exit life 5 minutes later?”  
He knots the rope tightly.  
“You didn’t even tell me why!”

The, now oldest, Winchester leans onto the table where the corpse of John lies dead and cold.  
“Dad you’re such an asshole”, Dean says with a trembling voice.

He knows it is not how you treat your dead father on his last journey, but Dean was angry and confused and in deep sorrow all together. Although, he was not just angry at John. He was angry at himself. He blamed himself. His fathers death is Dean’s fault, and he knows it.   
“Damn it!”

The Winchester uses the time, in which Sam was outside to prepare the wood, to let out his bottled up frustration. 

“You bastard”, he repeats. “You damn bastard.”  
Still, it is not sure who the insult is directed at.


	6. Memory Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All hell breaks loose.

“No!”, Dean yells as Jake comes up behind Sam and buried the knife in his little brothers back. Tears roll down his face when he holds the younger steady, but it’s no use, because Sam is dead.   
The younger slumps lifeless against Deans body. He beckons back and forth as a gesture of calm for his brother, but it’s useless, because Sam is dead.

For the first time, since this flood of bad memories has started, Dean feels conscious about them not being real. He understands, that these memories are only projections in his head. And he also becomes conscious about the fact, that it is Michael projecting them into his head. Michael the Archangel. Micheal, whom Dean let possess himself to save Sam, Jack and the world. The son of a bitch, who betrayed him and stole him his body. God knows what he is doing, wearing his face in this very moment.

„No, not again. Not this again“, Dean sobs, burying his face in the Sam’s shoulder. He presses his eyes shut. His brothers blood falls in warm drops from his fingers. Sam isn’t breathing. Because Sam is dead.

When he opens his eyes again, the body is gone from from Deans arms. He also isn’t cowering on the floor anymore. Instead, he is sitting beside the bed on which Sam lies cold. The sight of it makes his heart nearly stop. 

Dean falls to his knees next to the bed and just stares at his dead little brother.   
“Why this again?”, he asks, “Why do I have to go through this again?”  
Of course, Sam does not answer. Sam does not answer because he is dead. 

Next thing, the little desk left to the bed is sent flying to the other side of the room.  
“Enough you bastard! Stop it!”  
Dean has enough of Michael games. He can’t endure this any longer. This is torture. The worst kind.

Of course, the angel stays quite like a grave -even if graves are not always quite. Dean would know-.


	7. Memory Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens in hell, stays in hell.

Suffocating heat, comparable to a volcano with the humidity of a rainforest. Clouds and Lightning’s wherever you look. A toxic green and grey are their colours.   
All that is heard is thunder and screams and, on occasion, the sound of metal bashing against each other. It’s loud and silent at the same time. 

Dean screams. His skin is tearing apart under his own weight as he hangs from metal hooks. In front of him, the most ugly creature the entire universe has ever seen: Alastair. Demons in their true form surely are the most disgusting creatures someone could lay their eyes on.   
“Now Dean, what do we want to do today?”  
Only grunts and painful winces come out of Dean’s mouth. He would not say a single word to this thing.  
“Well then I guess it’s up to me!”, he -or it-laughs wickedly. 

Then, coming up really close to his face the creature says:   
“I’ll make you beg for mercy”  
Dean manages to hold his expression steady, but he knows it won’t last for long.

“Now let’s get started”, Alastair says in a cheerful and yet scary way, which lets shivers of fear run down Dean’s spine.

Then, the demon slowly approaches him.  
And it feels like years and years of torture all over again. Years of suffering, with no end in sight.


	8. Memory Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Swan Song.

“It’s okay Dean. It’s gonna be okay.”

His face hurts, swollen and scarred from the force that hit it. Lucifer in shape of Sam. His Sam. And now, his little brother stands there, mouthing his own death sentence; and Dean cannot move. An unsure smile forms on Sam’s lips, as he looks back one more time. Then, taking a deep breath his brother stares down into the seemingly bottomless hole opened before him. 

Everything happens so fast. Dean can’t grasp it fully. Suddenly Sam is gone, Adam is gone and the hole is closed. 

He crawls forward, stops where the gate was open a few seconds ago. Dean only to finds the four rings of the horsemen left behind without a scratch.   
Over. It is over.

Dean gets to his knees and just stares to the ground. His mind is washed blank, room only for one thought: Sam.

When Castiel heals his wounds, he doesn’t notice it at first. He is too deep in thoughts. Bobby’s encouraging words don’t reach him either. He only nods and stares into the distance. Dean finds no real comfort in seeing the fellow hunter alive. His senses are numb. 

He turns down every offer the angel or Bobby make him. Nothing could fix what has just been shattered. Dean’s world was lying on the floor in pieces so small, it could be sand.

The only thing stopping him from driving into the next best tree, was Sam’s dying wish. He was going to make it happen. For Sam, because he is the most important thing in his life, the only important thing right now. Sam. It will always be Sam.


	9. Stop it!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stop it.

“Stop it. Stop it! STOP IT!”, Dean screams.  
The memories keep infiltrating his head.

Rarely, Dean panics like he does in this moment. He can’t afford panicking in the most situations.  
But this, Dean can’t take.

The memories don’t stop filling his head. They won’t till Michael has enough.


	10. Memory Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lisa and Ben.

“Take care of your mom.”

Dean has to turn away. He will faint if he doesn’t.   
His breath is hitching. He can’t control it. Tears start to burn in his eyes, hand wandering up to his moth and nose to control the air streaming in and out.

_It is better this way_ , he tells himself. _They are safe now. You’ve finally done the right thing. You would only hurt them._

Lisa and Ben have forgotten him, with the help of Castiel. And over and over he tells himself that it is okay, that it is right this way, which doesn’t help coping with the loss at all.   
But, he will not talk about it. He won’t throw his feelings out there for people to hear. No, this never ended good in his life. So he stays silent. As always.


	11. Memory Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel.

Cas, when he vanishes into the dirty water of the lake, dripping with black goo. 

Cas,when he is stabbed by a person who betrayed him and used his naivite to kill him.

Cas, when he comes back out of the rift with hope in his eyes, right before they light up in a bright blue as Lucifer stabs him. Then, having to burn his body in a hunters funeral, because that is what he deserves. 

Dean put extra effort in the preparation of the wood and the white blankets wrapped around Castiel like a cocoon. He hasn’t the slightest hope for Cas to suddenly crawl out of it like a caterpillar and having his wings back. However, deep down Dean secretly dreamt of this ridiculous thought, like a little boy. Though, he knows it’s no use.

He takes his favourite lighter to light the fire; and the whole time, he cannot believe that this is reality.


	12. Memory Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bobby.

The realisation that Bobby is dead is like a thousand lights going out at once.   
Dean is on the edge the whole time he is waiting in the hospital. The whole time, he has hope the old guy would somehow life through it. Because it’s Bobby. Nothing can kill Bobby. But, he is wrong; and when the fellow hunter takes his last breath, everything crumbles to pieces. All the hope, all the luck, all the happiness he has, gone in one second. He lost one father already, why does he have to loose the second one too?

One last time, his thumb strokes over the cold hand of Bobby Singer, before he lets go and leaves the room.


	13. Memory Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin.

Sam gone. Kevin dead. And it’s all his fault. But what other choice did he have? Sam would have died if he didn’t let that angel into his body. This whole situation is so complicated, Dean doesn’t dare thinking deeply about it at this moment. He won’t be able to handle it.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. He can’t change it.  
Dean has to burn Kevin alone. The guilt is so heavy, sometimes he feels like he would crumble under the weight at any moment. Not being able to find Sam doesn’t make things better; and as he finds Kevin’s phone and sees the picture with him and his mom, Dean can’t hold it back anymore. Papers, lamps and chairs fly across the room and he breaks to his knees with a heartbreaking scream on his lips. The noises echo through the halls of the bunker till it’s completely silent again.


	14. Memory Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie.

“Charlie?”

The dirty, blood splattered bathtub is no place for Charlie. She shouldn’t be there, surrounded by blood. She is pure. Never should there be something bad happening to her. But, it’s too late.  
First, he is mad at Sam, for getting her into trouble, for continuing to search for a cure for the mark, even after he told him not to; but then he realises that, ultimately, it’s him who is responsible. Or so he tells himself, because he would rather find failure in him than in others. It’s easier that way. 

“Goodbye Charlie.”  
After the fire burnt down, Dean takes some of its ashes. Then he goes into the woods nearby and scatters the remains of the women with the hair like fire.  
She had told him about death rituals in LARP games and how beautiful she thought they were as honour for the dead. So Dean tries to recreate them for her.

“I promise, I’ll kill the bastards, who did this to you”, he swears, “I promise.”  
The Mark on his arm is burning.


	15. End.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> End of the loop. For now.

“I’m wrapping and burning and torching the whole time. And every time it’s someone different. And every time it’s my fault. I get it okay? I GET IT!” Dean screams the words in the air. “YOU CAN STOP! I GET IT!”

Just now, he is standing in the woods where he just gave Charlie her last honour. The angel hasn’t zapped to another memory yet and Dean remembers again what is really going on. So he uses the time to call out to Michael.

“I know there is barely someone to whom knowing me has caused no pain. I know that people die because of me. I know the most things I do are mistakes. I know I’m not worth the effort people put in me, the effort Sam puts into me! You don’t have to show me that! I KNOW, OKAY?” His fist hits a tree.   
“At least come here and say it to my face you piece of shit!”

Breathing heavily, he leans on the tree he just punched.  
“I know”, he croaks.

**Author's Note:**

> This and the following parts can be read as separate one shots or as successive events, do it as you like.


End file.
